Kenner council members to consider new movie filming guidelines

Kenner residents will have more control over filming in their neighborhoods, according to new commercial filming guidelines to be considered next week by the Kenner City Council.

Rusty Costanza, The Times-PicayuneThe 'Bad Girls Club,' a reality show for the Oxygen Network, was filmed at this house in Kenner and was the subject of concern because of the lack of control city officials had over the filming.

The new rules are "film friendly," said Kenner Councilwoman Maria DeFrancesch, and "at the same time safeguard the City of Kenner and its constituents." DeFrancesch helped the City Attorney's office develop the regulations after a mini-fiasco earlier this year.

Kenner officials were caught flat-footed in February when the Oxygen Channel's "Bad Girls Club" got ready to start filming in a Chateau Estates home. Neighbors were riled up about the racy reality TV show, and the city tried unsuccessfully to pull the plug.

"Something good came out of that," said DeFrancesch, who represents the north Kenner neighborhood where "Bad Girls Club" was filmed. "We now have formal procedures in place so we wont be blindsided once again."

The new law would require filmmakers to fill out a permit application and regulate the range of hours and number of days allowed for filming. Filming might require, in some cases, consent from the City Council, said Tamithia Shaw, assistant city attorney and interim director of the code enforcement department.

The ordinance will also require a letter informing neighbors of the filming, DeFrancesch said.

The law differentiates between different types of productions, and contains exceptions from the permit requirements for news media, family video and studio productions.

In researching the ordinance, officials studied the movie business in New Orleans and Shreveport, DeFrancesch said: "We talked to people in the film industry.

"It needs," she said, "to be a win-win for both sides and then things go smoothly."